The Band Perry Pioneering its own place in country music

The Band Perry released its second album, Pioneer, Tuesday.

It's been a busy 48 hours for The Band Perry, or past three years depending on who you ask. In the past 48 hours, the young trio has been on Letterman, Good Morning America and ABC's Nightline; and released a new single, Done, a new video and a new album, Pioneer, which debuted at number one on iTunes country chart. The ads that precede the band's Done music video features the band promoting its CD. You can literally listen to the band while you wait for the band's video to load.

--It won't be whiskey, won't be meth/It'll be your name on my last breath (Better Dig Two)

The album signifies the band's move from cute, novelty sibling act to legitimate group of the year candidates capable of contending with Lady Antebellum, The Zac Brown Band and tour mates Rascal Flatts.

The band's strength is its ability to mix their three-part harmony of guitar, mandolin and bass guitar with lead singer Kimberly's heavy voice and strong lyrics, which are all on display on Pioneer. The result is a complexly simple sound.

--Take the keys to my car and the keys to my heart and just drive (Don't let me be lonely)

The siblings have been playing together for more than a decade, which makes their sound more polished and cohesive than any band has a right to have on its sophomore album. This familiarity and trust with each other allows them to take risks and do things that they might not otherwise do, such as channeling their inter-Queen on Forever Mine Nevermind, a song co-written with Brad Paisley.

--The airline lost my luggage/And the governor lost my vote/My best friend lost her innocence in her boyfriend's rowboat/Your mother lost her favorite pearls/The ones that you gave to me/I lost them when I tossed them/On the day that you lost me/(Forever Mine Nevermind)

Just as the band's sound sounds as if it's grown since their debut album, their lyrics capture the band member's growth off stage. The nearly 30 Kimberley, who wrote the band's number one single "If I die," sounds as if she's the girl Taylor Swift would be if she listened to Carrie Underwood's advice.

There's not an ounce of feeling sorry for yourself on this album. It's not a hate album. "Life happens, learn from it and move on" seems to capture The Band Perry's feelings on relationships gone wrong, a refreshing dose of maturity not heard enough on the radio. The lyrics offer enough edge to take her seriously and make any guy think twice about crossing her without crossing into the "poor me" territory.

The band has said often in interviews that they were influenced by both their father's love for classic rock and their mother's love of country music. Pioneer has already sold more than a million albums as the threesome takes its music to a place where the two styles come together in one place.

--You orphaned child /Your mother is adventure and your father is the wild (Pioneer)